


Pariahs

by shcherbatskayas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Ex-idol Ibuki, F/F, References to bullying, They're just so gay lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shcherbatskayas/pseuds/shcherbatskayas
Summary: Or, Ibuki's adventures in being unpopular in high school





	Pariahs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Instrumentalist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Instrumentalist/gifts).



> I can't believe it y'all. 10k in a weekend. I need a Nap now also I promise that Deceit is next up. This is my first time really writing Tsumioda and idk why I didn't do it earlier, I love these girls so much. Please enjoy!

The first day of high school was always a nerve-wracking affair. The first day of high school when you had just left your famous idol group over what was essentially a fight over hair and now every single person you knew was ignoring you was significantly worse. As much as she hated to admit it, Ibuki Mioda was nervous about this. All of her old friends hated her and the kids who she had gone to school and not really interacted with (not that she hadn’t _wanted_ to talk to them, just that there hadn’t been any time!) were too scared to associate her lest they too be alienated. And certainly the new kids from the other middle school had heard the tales. How could they have avoided it? The paparazzi had taken up stake outside of her house for two and a half weeks. Ibuki managed to be nice to them, to put on her show and pretend everything was normal, but they were all but suffocating her. From one smothering force to another was hardly fair. But then there was another story to track and Ibuki was free for the first time in years and over the break, when it didn’t really matter, the freedom was nice. She put streaks in her hair and played the guitar aimlessly and cartwheeled down the street and played infinite rounds of vintage Touhou Project games while drinking Mountain Dew. But now that bit of freedom was over and it was back to school, this time without the safety of a gaggle of girls to spend lunch and breaks with. But it would be okay! It had to be! It would be okay. Just maybe not at first. 

Her parents were leaving for work at the same time that Ibuki was leaving for school. Her father handed her a bagel and ruffled her hair, enjoying the way that different colors appeared as he moved his hand around. “Dying your hair like that was the cutest thing you ever did, kiddo.”

“Mhmm!” Ibuki agreed, taking a bit of the bagel. “I just hope everyone at school agrees.”

“I’m sure they will.” Her mother chimed in, taking a sip from the coffee which Ibuki was very much banned. She tended to get far too hyper when she drank the stuff. “And if they don’t...Well, I’m sure one of them will. It’ll just take time to find them.”

“But not too much time!” Her father said, not wanting Ibuki to get too discouraged. “Now go get ‘em, kid.”

Ibuki nodded and after giving both of her parents a hug, she head towards the train station and went to school, trying not to feel like she was stepping directly into hell. 

***

Her homeroom was filled with some strange people, but it was mostly strange people from the other school, and Ibuki was grateful for that. From her old school, there was only Hiyoko Saionji, Ryouta Mitari, Chiaki Nanami, and Nagito Komaeda. Their groups hadn’t really run into each other and there was no bad blood between any of them, so Ibuki doubted any of them except Hiyoko would spend any time bringing up who she was and what she had done. The rest of them had gone to the other high school on this side of Kobe, with the exception of two transfer students, one of whom didn’t even have a name. The nameless one seemed ultra cool and Ibuki wanted to hang out with them, but they seemed preoccupied, so Ibuki looked for someone else to speak to. There were so many options that it seemed overwhelming. There was a dude with a scarf that held hamsters, a guy with pink hair who seemed to use the same brand of hair dye that she did, a red-haired girl with a camera, and the other exchange student with a name who had a strange accent and the shiniest hair she had ever seen. But out of everyone, Ibuki decided to sit next to a girl about her height with awkward, choppy hair and a nervous disposition. She looked as scared as Ibuki felt that morning, so it only seemed natural for her to sit next to this particular stranger. They would probably both feel better if they had someone to sit by and besides, she didn’t seem like the sort of person who tracked idol drama. 

“Hey-o!” Ibuki greeted, giving her an enthusiastic wave before sticking it out to the stranger to shake her hand. “I’m Ibuki Mioda! What’s your name?”

“I’m, um, I’m Mikan Tsumiki!” She said, shaking Ibuki’s hand gently before retracting her own hand. “Are you sure you want to sit with m-me?” 

The question struck her as odd and Ibuki tilted her head to the side. “Yeah! Totally! Why wouldn’t I?”

“I-It’s just that the kids from my school never liked me much…” Mikan admitted, adjusting the ribbon on her school uniform. “So I thought that you wouldn’t want to associate with me or anything like that.”

“Well, the kids from my school don’t like me much either!” She declared, almost glad to have found another outcast to hang out with, but not quite because that meant this girl was stuck being miserable, too. “So I think this’ll work out perfectly!”

“Really?” Mikan’s eyes went wide at that news. “Why wouldn’t they like you? You seem...Um, you seem really nice! At least, I think so!”

“Because of this stupid idol thing. It’s _so_ dumb, but never mind about that!” Ibuki waved her hand dismissively once she admitted it, glad that she could wave it off so easily in front of someone who wasn’t involved at all. She took out a notebook and started flipping idly through the blank pages. “It seems dumb that they don’t like you, either. You seem perfectly okay to me! Now I’m gonna draw something in the middle of this and see if I still remember drawing it when I get to this page. I’m AWFUL at remembering things, so it’ll be like a test!” 

“What are you going to draw?” Mikan asked, leaning towards Ibuki and then suddenly going back as if she’d been shocked. “U-Unless you don’t want to tell me! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you! I-I’m always screwing these things up.” 

“No, it’s okay!” Ibuki reassured her with a pat on the shoulder, trying to think of why she’d be so afraid of her own curiosity. The kids at her old school must’ve been awfully cruel to her if that was her reaction to asking questions. “I’m gonna draw...Hm, I dunno what I want to draw? Do you have any ideas?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a flower?” She suggested, wringing her hands as she watched Ibuki pick up the pencil again. 

“Good idea! Flowers are pretty.” Ibuki doodled a sloppy little rose in the top corner and then doodled another in the bottom corner. When she finished with that corner, she ripped it off and handed it to Mikan. “For you!” 

“For me?” Mikan confirmed, holding it as carefully as if she had just been handed the Mona Lisa. “Really?’

“Really!” Ibuki said, giving her the brightest smile she could. Mikan was nice, she decided. Shy, sure, and a little strange, but nice. Ibuki needed more nice people in her life. After a second, Mikan smiled back and then class began. 

***

In the cafeteria, Mikan and Ibuki were given a wide berth. There were three empty seats on either side of them and the groups at the other ends at the table clustered together closely, almost afraid that their outcast status was contagious. Ibuki was able to spot her old friends among the mix, purposefully avoiding looking at her. She tried not to feel hurt and failed rather miserably, but she covered it up well. 

While Ibuki picked at her food, she couldn’t help but ask Mikan questions. She learned that Mikan was from Kobe and had lived there her whole life. She had a mother, a father, and a small cat that she doted on and she spent all the money she made cutting people’s lawns and babysitting their kids on buying her the best cat food on the market. The cat ate better than Mikan did, but she didn’t seem bothered by this. She also learned that Mikan volunteered at the hospital on weekends and Wednesday and Thursday nights and that she wanted to be a doctor some day. It was nice to focus on Mikan so much because it distracted Ibuki from her own misery and it seemed to make Mikan ridiculously happy and above all, it was nice to hear about another person whose life was so different and yet so similar to her own. 

“I’m working on memorizing bones.” She told Ibuki softly. “Because we probably won’t get to them in Bio or anything--not that the teachers here are bad!--It’s just, uh, I want to know them. I have the foot memorized now, I think, but I don’t know…”

“That’s so cool!” Ibuki said, and then she got struck with an idea. “There’s a skeleton in one of the classrooms! I saw it when we were passing! Come on, I’ll quiz ya!” 

They finished their food at lightning speed after that and Ibuki ran off to the empty classroom, dragging Mikan behind her. She ran far too fast for school, but it was fun to feel the wind in her hair and feel the light weight of Mikan’s wrist in her hand. They sat down on the floor and Ibuki watched in amazement as she named every bone in the foot, pointing to it and explaining what each one did and how to fix it if it got broken. Normally, that sort of stuff bored Ibuki, but watching Mikan get so excited about bones made it fun to listen to. She apologized for her excitement at least six times, but that was okay. Ibuki figured she would grow out of that habit eventually once she got a good friend, and when Mikan offered to help her with her homework and laughed at her jokes and looked at her with those large, Bambi-like eyes, Ibuki figured that she would be the perfect person to be that friend. 

Before the school day ended, Ibuki gave her a hug. She wasn’t sure why she did it, really, other than that Mikan was probably the most huggable person she had ever met. Mikan eventually hugged her back and Ibuki felt like she had just been given the most precious gift on Earth. 

***

Mikan quickly became part of Ibuki’s day. They sat next to each other in class and at lunch and during breaks, they ended up making a group with Hiyoko Saionji and Mahiru Koizumi. Hiyoko could be mean to her, but it was all harmless teasing, or at least that was what Ibuki thought. Plus, with Hiyoko focusing her teasing on Mikan, Ibuki didn’t have to worry too much about her bringing up old drama, so the matter was essentially buried within the bounds of homeroom. After a week, Ibuki got Mikan’s number and sent her selfies by the dozen. Mikan responded with pictures of her cat, who Ibuki learned was named Mary Takara, and occasionally Ibuki would be able to see glimpses of her hand in the photograph. Ibuki realized pretty quickly that she liked Mikan as more than a friend, but she didn’t want to be too forward about it. All of the magazines she saw and articles that she read online said that she had to be subtle about it and taking their advice seemed like a good idea. She passed off all of her flirtations as tiny jokes, but she didn’t fool Mahiru Koizumi (or much of anyone else, really) , who would smile knowingly every time she “casually” put an arm around Mikan’s shoulder or told her that her hair looked pretty. 

One time, towards the end of May, Ibuki visited Mikan during her break at the hospital. It felt like she was in a different world. Normally, Mikan shrunk away from all strangers and was careful not to look at anyone and made herself as small as possible, but when Ibuki walked into the cafeteria on that Wednesday night, she was very calmly discussing a patient in the burn wing with a doctor Ibuki had never seen. She was filled with pride at this small accomplishment, and when Mikan waved at her, Ibuki waved back as enthusiastically as she could with two coffees in her hand and ended up elbowing a nurse in the face. 

Once Mikan got the nurse ice and Ibuki apologized profusely and even sang a song to her in order to make up for the bruise, they sat down at one of the tables and just passed time as they normally would, talking about the same silly things that they always did. When she went to leave, Ibuki gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. 

“Go out there and save the world!” She exclaimed and Mikan, her face bright red, nodded once before scurrying off. 

Ibuki went home and sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper after that. Her muse, which had died in January when everything happened, had suddenly returned and the song she ended up writing was about Mikan Tsumiki. 

***

It was September when Mikan finally started studying the bones that made up the hand and Ibuki was overjoyed. Mikan had gotten into the habit of using Ibuki as her study model, poking her arms and legs and back to point out each bone and sometimes just poking her for fun. It never would’ve happened back in April, but it was happening now. Ibuki, at some point, had proved herself safe enough to tease. Mikan was becoming bolder in her own quiet way around Ibuki and she couldn’t be more proud. Her status as a pariah hadn’t changed and she knew that the only reason some of Ibuki’s new friends only let her hang around because Ibuki insisted, but Mikan seemed to be okay with it if she even noticed it at all. Ibuki bragged to her parents every day about how wonderful her new friend was and the bones she was studying and when she mentioned that now Mikan was focusing on carpals and metacarpals and whatever else was in hands, her father spoke out her hopes. 

“Maybe she’ll hold your hand when she’s studying them.” He joked, taking a sip of the saki he had broken out in celebration of getting a pay raise, and Ibuki nodded. 

“I hope so!” She said. “I got to braid her hair yesterday--It’s becoming more even after that incident she told me about in her second year of middle school so I’m allowed to touch it now--and that was so, so nice!”

“Well, just make sure to bring her around sometime, won’t you? I’d love to meet her.” Ibuki’s mother said, figuring that this Mikan was just as nice as her daughter promised, but it could never hurt to double check. 

“I will!” Ibuki promised, holding out her pinkie to her mother, who sighed lovingly and wrapped her pinkie around Ibuki’s. 

Her dreams came true during lunch, when Mikan was pointing out the bones with Ibuki’s hand flat on the table. Mikan, wanting to see something a little more clearly, took Ibuki’s hand in her own and moved it. Ibuki grinned at her, hardly able to focus on the specifics of bones when Mikan was holding her hand and tracing lines all over it with gentle, trembling fingers. Mikan’s face was bright red, but she was also smiling, just a little bit. That little smile made Ibuki feel so happy that she wondered if it was possible to die because her heart was about to burst from pure joy. She’d ask Mikan, but the idea of distracting her from the wonder of their hands touching each other was revolting to her. Ibuki wanted things to stay like that forever, with Mikan happy and somewhat confident and explaining things that she loved and Ibuki able to witness it all and tell her how amazing it all was and sing a thousand songs about hand bones to help Mikan remember them all. It was all so beautiful. It was far too beautiful to last. 

***

When looking back on it, Ibuki should have realized that Hiyoko’s teasing was more than just light hearted jokes. Sure, sometimes Mikan got teary-eyed over them, but she got teary-eyed over a lot of things. She once cried because she saw someone walking a dog and that dog was just too cute for her to comprehend. Usually Ibuki was about to distract her and she would be fine in five minutes, so she didn’t think much about it. She should’ve realized that it wasn’t normal for Hiyoko to always call her ugly, to be so cruel to her, but Ibuki had gone to school with her for years. She just accepted that as who Hiyoko was and didn’t even think about how other people would be affected by it because she forgot that not everyone was as used to Kiyoko as she was. She should’ve seen the way that Hiyoko was becoming more quiet when she wasn’t making sharp comments to people, about how something in her was building up and bubbling until it finally boiled over and Mikan ended up in the danger zone.

Two days after Mikan held her hand, she called Ibuki half an hour after school let out in hysterical tears. Ibuki couldn’t even understand _what_ she was saying, but she was able to figure out just by the sound of it that she wasn’t physically hurt but emotionally hurt.

“Miki, why don’t you come over to my place?” She suggested, figuring that a good hug might be able to fix this. 

“N-No, you can’t see me! I-I’m too ugly now!” Mikan wept, her voice breaking every couple of words. “My hair! Hiyoko...I-I just was so w-worried about her so I asked her what was wrong and she…! And th-the girl from 77-C, sh-she recorded it and now everyone...I’m so ugly now!” 

Ibuki felt a rare surge of anger towards Hiyoko at what she was able to gather from those fragments, but it would be better to start on that when she was sure that MIkan was okay. “It’s okay! I don’t care what you hair looks like, I just wanna give you a hug! If you don’t want to come to me, I’ll just go to you! It’s gonna be okay.” 

Mikan paused for a second and then blurted out an address before hanging up. Ibuki wrote it down on three separate sticky notes, grabbed a variety of hats and headbands from her idol days, and ran out the door. Her parents saw her run out but didn’t ask where she was going. They couldn’t have even if they wanted to because before they could even form the words, Ibuki was out the door and on the train. 

It wasn’t hard to find the house. It was tiny, with siding that was partially falling off, but the garden was nicely kept and a little cat sat by the front door, meowing loudly. For a second, she couldn’t see the cat, but once she got closer, Ibuki recognized it.

“It’s Miss Mary Takara!” Ibuki said happily, watching the cat turn her head and take in the stranger. The cat gave her a loud meow before turning her attention back to the front door. Ibuki knocked twice and heard a tearful “I’m on the way!”

The door swung open and the cat entered immediately, hopping up onto a table and licking Mikan’s elbow curiously, almost as if she hadn’t ever seen her elbows before. Mikan’s hair was chopped off in bits, some pieces retaining their normal length and some pieces almost completely gone and most of them somewhere in between the two. Her clothes were torn and her eyes were bloodshot and Mikan was sputtering out something Ibuki couldn’t quite understand, not even with her musician’s hearing. She closed the door behind her and wrapped Mikan into the biggest hug she could, rubbing circles into her back and trying to remember the names of the vertebrae that Mikan and had so clearly explained to her over breaks. 

“It’s okay.” Ibuki said, repeating the phrase over and over as Mikan sobbed into her shoulder. The collection of hats that she brought were now being investigated by Mary Takara, who claimed one of them as her new toy and played with it by herself until dropping it at Mikan’s feet and then nudging her leg to bring attention to it. Mikan, who had calmed down somewhat, actually laughed when she noticed that and let go of Ibuki in order to give her cat a rub on the head. 

“I-I’m sorry, I should’ve invited you in better than I did! Do you want a drink? Do you want to pet Mary Takara? Do you want...Um, what else do people want?” Mikan asked her all of these questions as she lead Ibuki into her room. It was small and cute with pale yellow walls and a pristine white carpet. Ibuki sat down on the bed and Mikan sat next to her, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands. 

“I’m good! I want to help you right now!” Ibuki said, taking out her phone. “My aunt’s a hairdresser, so she can probably even it all up and make it look really nice! She’s super-duper talented! She does my hair, too.”

“I don’t have any money.” Mikan admitted sheepishly. 

“That’s okay! You’re my friend. She’ll do it for free! Plus, your hair is really soft and fluffy, so she’ll have fun cutting it.” Ibuki reassured her and then pulled up photos of girls with short hair. They spent nearly an hour looking through all of them and picking out the best style for what was left, a feathery sort of pixie cut that Ibuki would have a ton of fun running her hands through and that Mikan could decorate however she liked. The best part of it was when Mikan found one that she didn’t like, though. When Ibuki asked about ones that didn’t quite suit Mikan’s taste, Mikan actually said that she didn’t like them, even if she did it in a roundabout sort of way. Once it was all settled with her aunt, Ibuki helped Mikan hide her hair beneath one of the hats and they left for her house. 

Ibuki’s aunt was already there when she arrived and sat Mikan down, working through the mess with her scissors while Mikan explained what happened, too tired from her earlier weeping to cry about it again. There was only so much crying one person could do in a day and now that it was being fixed, it didn’t seem as much of an issue. Ibuki’s parents both seemed to like Mikan, judging by the way that they gave her water to drink and a business card for a dojo that taught self-defense classes. In the end, Mikan’s hair looked nice. Ibuki liked it because she could see a little more of Mikan’s face and more of Mikan was always a good thing. She returned home with what seemed like thousands of new ribbons and headbands for her hair and tried not to think of the video of her crying and screaming while Hiyoko attacked her hair with scissors that had now gone viral. It was best not to think of things like that. 

***

The day after she returned from the haircut incident, Mikan ended up crying three times before homeroom even started and all but hid in the broom closet when she saw Hiyoko until she was overwhelmed by the same concern that caused her to ask what was wrong in the first place. After that, she made a point to talk to her during lunch. Ibuki couldn’t hear the conversation from where she was, but she saw the way that the people who were near Mikan and not involved in the situation all moved away, making another version of the circle that was always around them. She saw Hiyoko start to cry and Mikan, seemingly having forgave her for what happened, wrapped her arms around her and said something that was probably kind. Ibuki loved her for it and knew that it was best to accept her decision to forgive, but something about the way Mikan had cried when it all happened made it hard. Ibuki was normally quick to forgive and forget, but Mikan was nice. Mikan didn’t deserve any of what happened. She liked Mikan too much to just forget it. 

Mikan brought Hiyoko to the table and Ibuki smiled, talking about nothing in particular to distract them all from the nonsense. When Mikan left, Ibuki let the facade drop for a second and just stared at Hiyoko. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Hiyoko was the first person who ever dared to hurt someone she loved. At first, they had been too intimidated by her idol status, and then by her ex-idol status. But over the course of the year, she had become a mortal again, one who was able to have those close to her get hurt. Hiyoko saw that look and understood that while Mikan may have forgiven her, Ibuki hadn’t, not quite yet. 

“I’m…” Hiyoko began an apology, but then gave up on it. She’d prove that she was sorry, that the outburst had gotten out of control and that she regretted it, and then everything would be back to normal, or maybe even slightly better than normal. It would just take time. 

***

Hiyoko was forgiven three days later when someone broadcasted the video in front of the entire school and Hiyoko broke their kneecap with a kick. Mikan had cried at first at the humiliation of it, but halfway through her tearful episode, she realized how stupid it was, about how if they had hated her before, one more thing that made them hate her didn’t matter and that everyone who didn’t hate her would see the video and not despite her for it. Wasting tears on it was useless. There were better things to do. 

***

It was October when Mikan got to the bones in the skull. She traced lines all over Ibuki’s face, pointing out each bone gently. She touched her cheeks, the back of her head, the space below her eyes, the part of her nose where cartilage would be. Her fingers kept getting closer and closer to her lips and Ibuki almost couldn't stand it. 

“Aren’t there any bones in my lips?” She blurted out, far too enthusiastic about the possibility. 

“Uh...No.” Mikan said. “But I’ll touch them anyways, just to be fair.”

Ibuki figured that she would just brush her fingers over them, just like she had everything else, but Mikan moved her face closer and before Ibuki could move towards her at all, Mikan pressed her lips to hers. Ibuki figured that she was definitely dead from the sheer force of her happiness and kissed her back, resting her hands in Mikan’s hair and pulling her closer. Ibuki just couldn’t stop kissing her. It was impossible. Mikan was just too good to stop kissing. 

Eventually Mikan pulled away and smiled at her, blushing all the way up to the tips of her ears. “I think we ought to do that again sometime.”

“We should!” Ibuki agreed, bouncing slightly in her seat. “It’s a good way to study, don’t ‘cha think? You won’t forget where it is if you kiss it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I would. It’s definitely worth a try.” Mikan nodded at that suggestion and kissed her forehead, muttering a name in Latin she couldn’t even pretend to understand or pronounce. She kissed her temple, the space beneath her eyes, her jawbone, kept dancing around her lips until Ibuki would kiss Mikan’s in passing and then she would laugh quietly, a musical sound that Ibuki wanted to somehow fit into a song just so that the whole world could hear it and understand how lovely Mikan was, the perfect mix of softness without weakness and strength without cruelty. She couldn’t put it into music just then, but when Mikan was back to looking at her anatomy book, Ibuki grabbed a sticky note and wrote it down. 

***

Technically speaking, they were both still unpopular. Nobody bullied Mikan to her face anymore, but she was still made fun of when she was out of earshot. Ibuki still had a bit of the ex-idol stigma, the scorn of her old group, the eye rolls of those who saw her enthusiasm and thought her to be completely insufferable. But it was alright. It was more than alright. They had a few friends and more than that, they had each other. They had Thursday nights at the movies and Saturday afternoons in the recording studio where Ibuki was putting the finishing touches on some of her new songs and Monday mornings in class, where Ibuki would pass Mikan cute little love letters and Mikan would smile knowingly and place them in her binder next to her flashcards. While the drama of the rest of the world raged on, they had each other and that was worth more than the old dreams of popularity and fame. No amount of passing affection could make up for the real thing. And sure, there was still the ring of empty chairs around them at the spot where they ate lunch, but neither of them were too bothered by it anymore. It gave them room to spread out their things and rest their feet on empty chairs and talk with their hands without having to worry about hitting anyone near them in the face with their elbows like Ibuki had done to that poor nurse a few months earlier. 

They did end up studying human bones in Biology, but that was alright, too. Ibuki wasn’t necessarily very great at school, but at least she knew she would ace that test.


End file.
